PLAYSKOOL`S JOB ASSISTANCE QUESTIONED

Rogers WorthingtonCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Almost a year after the owners announced the closing of the Playskool Inc. plant on Chicago`s West Side, nearly half the laid-off workers have not found work, and no new tenant has been found for the 800,000-square-foot complex, 4501 W. Augusta Blvd.

With only 45 days to go before Playskool leaves Chicago, the Mayor`s Office of Employment and Training has begun to assist and place the remaining unemployed workers, acting at the request of community organizations. And Hasbro Inc., Playskool`s parent company, has said it will continue operating its own job placement center through the year`s end.

But when Hasbro ceases plant operations Nov. 1, it will leave behind a wide difference of opinion over the effectiveness of its employee assistance efforts.

Of 583 salaried and hourly Playskool workers has laid off since last fall, 295 had jobs as of Sept. 5, and 288 were unemployed, a Hasbro spokesman said. Since February, Hasbro has operated a job placement center at Playskool`s former personnel office.

Unless many more find work by Nov. 1, when Hasbro will lay off the plant`s remaining 100 employees, the number of unemployed former workers will be nearly 35 percent greater than those who have found work. Most are unionized production workers for whom few factory jobs are available in the Chicago area at the wages they earned at Playskool, which manufactured children`s toys.

Hasbro, headquarterd in Pawtucket, R.I., has placed the plant`s three buildings on the real estate market. Although there is a glimmer of interest by Chicago developer Harry Chaddick in converting the site to a shopping center and small manufacturing complex, no offers have been made.

Last fall Hasbro angered city officials when it announced plans to close the plant. In 1980, Milton Bradley Co., Playskool`s former parent company, acquired with the city`s sponsorship a low-interest, tax-exempt $1 million bond for expansion.

After Hasbro said it would close the plant, City Hall began legal action and the company drew the ire of several community organizations. But early this year the company and the city reached an agreement. Hasbro agreed to set up for its laid-off workers a job assistance center, which company officials say they had planned to do; a $50,000 assistance fund for grants and loans;

and a commitment to keep 100 workers employed and the plant open until Nov. 1. The company`s critics say it has given no grants from the $50,000 assistance fund, which a company spokesman acknowledges, and only a few small, short-term loans.

The critics say the company has been uncooperative with city and private agencies and indifferent to the need for an employee retraining program, considered essential by some placement specialists. Furthermore, they say the company has chosen a public relations approach rather than a substantive retraining method to finding jobs for their laid-off work force.

''I don`t think they cooperated with us or the city anywhere near the level they could have, had they chosen to,'' said William Leavy, director of community development with Association House, an 85-year-old settlement house serving the Near West Side.

''They clearly were always more concerned about their image than anything else,'' he said.

Hasbro officials defend their efforts and invite comparison of their job placement program with those after other plant closings.

''If you leave even one worker without work, it is not a perfect 10,''

said Steven Hassenfeld, president of Hasbro.

''But if you track our efforts with other firms that have closed, I think people will find we have really tried to put forth a major effort.'' It is one he said has cost nearly $1 million, an amount more than three times that the company intended to spend.

Early this year, Hasbro launched a $300,000 job placement effort that offered $500 to any company that hired a former Playskool employee, and included a multimedia advertising campaign. It featured a series of television commercials in which former Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers lauded the skills and work records of Playskool employees.

''It was a classic marketing situation,'' Hassenfeld said. ''We did classified advertising on the air because we wanted to get above the clutter.''

What Hasbro did not do was launch a retraining program, considered necessary by many job placement specialists in a time of shrinking markets for production workers. Playskool`s idea was that the $500 given to an employer could be used for on-the-job training.

''We focused on the concept that if we could connect our employees with other employers in the Chicago area, that would be the most effective vehicle,'' said Christopher Dona, Hasbro`s personnel director. Dona, like Hassenfeld, considers the campaign a success. Hasbro spokesmen refuse to say how many $500 payments have been made.

Those critical of the company`s program say $500 is insufficient to retrain a worker. ''It costs a lot more than that to retrain a person. That was pointed out at the time,'' said Elsie Wheeler, of the Local Joint Board of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. But more important, the $500 could be applied only when there are job openings.

''They can only put people in jobs that are there, and unfortunately the jobs aren`t there,'' Wheeler said.

The company rejected bringing in outside placement specialists and contracting with vocational schools for retraining.

But there is no industrywide standard by which to measure Playskool`s performance, academic observers say. Some companies have done better and some have done worse. Sometimes the quality and magnitude depend on a union contract, said Frank Castle, professor emeritus of business policy at Nortwestern University.

Using a professional placement firm, Amphenol Products has succeeded in placing between 80 and 90 percent of its 900-member work force, laid off in the past year at plants in Broadview and Cicero, a company spokesman said.

The placement firm, Lulay and Associates, provided attitudinal seminars, as well as placement services. Retraining programs were also available.

''The manufacturing society has changed in the U.S. These people will never be employed again as they have in the past,'' Gale Lulay said.

''They need a new attitude, to know they have other talents. If they go back into production, they may be the first fired again.''

But Inland Steel Co., which also brought in placement specialists and offered retraining, has found jobs for only about 40 percent of its 2,300 former workers laid off this year at the company`s plant in Michigan City, Ind.

The reason, said Inland personnel officer James Blair, is lack of worker response to the program, a problem Playskool has also experienced.

''For some reason they`re not coming into the center,'' Blair said.

Many of the former Playskool workers who remain unemployed are either older, unskilled workers, or have educational or language deficiencies. A random study in May by Association House of 49 Playskool hourly workers found that half did not have a high school diploma and that 64 percent of the Hispanic workers had language difficulties.

Even before retraining programs are considered, the Mayor`s Office of Employment and Training is conducting classes in English as a second language. The office is also holding classes leading to general equivalency high school degrees. A city spokesman said 131 former Playskool workers are attending classes.

There are about 100,000 unemployed former production workers in Chicago, according to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community.